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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Hogenakallu Falls

Few weeks back, I had been to Hogenkallu falls (Of Chinna Chinna Asse fame from film Roja) which is about 180Kms from Bangalore, in Tamilnadu (Via Hosur-Dharampuri). The trip was initially planned by Kavlz and me as a bike ride but then another colleague who was planning to take two of the Chinese delegates on a trip planned to join us. Thus we booked a Qualis. The drive was good, of course only after we leave the city limits. I will allow the pictures to talk more about the scenic view and mighty waterfalls and the coracle ride.

One disappointment was - the people at the falls (Localities). They kept following us and irritating us for taking a coracle ride and oil massages. They did not stop following us even if we scolded them rudely. After half an hour of avoiding them, we finally had to argue for a good price for the ride. We paid 100 per head, which again is a little too much, I think. But it seems totally impossible to argue with those guys. But the coracle ride is all worth it. He took us pretty close to many of the falls and then to an island.
Another drawback in the place was people again asking money for some ticket. We paid entrance fee twice, parking fee, fee to walk on a bridge and fee to take coracle ride and one guy was offering tickets if we had to cross from one side of the river to another. :-)

Interesting things noticed –

1. People continuously bothering you for coracle ride and massage.

2. Tickets for almost everything.

3. Fish, Sweets and what not, being cooked all over the place. The dishes are cleaned in same river water and they even drink the same water and of course not to forget that we enjoy the same falls.

4. Small kids waiting to dive for just Rs 5.

5. Small coracle shops.

It’s a nice place apart from these small backdrops that man has created.

I also had a similar experience near the Noh-ka-likai waterfall in Cherrapunjee, where the local people was irritating us about buying cloves and cinnamon from them and we really had a hectic time away from them....Some wonderfully captured shots and it was nice reading about the place.

Thanks a ton for telling us the source of Roja song !! And pictures are awesome. The place looks good.

I think we have to accept those little naggings, ppl all over the world try to sell things to us. After all it is their livelihood. If we accept this, remaining trip is going to be excellent but yeah, there has to be some boundary/rule.See how that fellow is selling the Lays pkts.

@Cuckoo - I think the June -July would be best time to be there or may be Nov too...

That was really cool idea to have shops there on coracles. :-)

The nagging was tooo much here.Just imagine people following you were ever you went bothering with same thing again and again for about 20-30 mins. I think it needs to be improved. As you rightly put it....it needs to have a limit.